UK latest country to join anti-smoking drive

Smoking causes more than 100,000 deaths in the UK each year and now the UK government is promising that it will become a driving force in helping smokers all over the world to quit.

Speaking at the UK launch of World No Tobacco Day, public health minister Caroline Flint outlined plans to spotlight the "significant influence" of smoking on health during the UK's EU presidency and pledged support for an international tobacco control treaty.

Cancer Research UK's chief executive Professor Alex Markham has critised the government and complains that the UK has in fact failed to take a strong lead in banning smoking in public places, saying that banning smoking in workplaces and enclosed public places is the most effective action to halt the damage wreaked by second hand smoke.

Health minister Flint said the UK would urge nations to sign up to the Convention for Tobacco Control - the first international public health treaty.

World No Tobacco Day, launched by the World Health Organization (WHO), is focusing on the role health workers play in getting the message across and setting an example.

Current government proposals intend to end smoking in all workplaces and enclosed public places in England and Wales by 2008, with exemptions for pubs that don't serve 'prepared' food, which would leave thousands of pub workers unprotected, said the charity.

But Ms Flint saw fit to tell health professionals at the London launch that "It is important to remember that smoking is banned throughout, or limited in certain areas, in almost 90% of workplaces so we are not starting at zero."

Flint says areas targeted as part of government plans to cut smoking across social groups include regulating tobacco products and controlling promotion and advertising of products, the thriving cigarette smuggling industry in Britain, and reviewing picture warnings on products to ensure that people got the message.

But earlier, Ms Flint told a BBC Radio programme the government had to balance the need for tough legislation with smokers' rights to "make a choice about their own health".

Sweden will implement smoke free legislation this week, joining Ireland, Norway, New Zealand, Malta and Bhutan.

Scotland is also set to introduce a comprehensive smoking ban in public places, without the exemptions planned for England.

Prof Markham says past experience of countries that have gone smoke free shows that legislation works best when it contains as few exemptions as possible.

Ms Flint said there had been an increase of 63% in the number of people who successfully stopped smoking via NHS services between 2003 and 2004, and more than a quarter of a million people had given up with the help of the NHS in the past year.

A Department of Health spokeswoman said it was hoped the introduction of the services to supermarkets and pubs in some areas would be extended to other parts of the country.